Column: Favorite stories have impact if not reader appeal

Sitting in our newsroom meeting last week while we discussed what stories we would include in our end-of-the-year review of the top news stories, I knew I was going to have to write this piece, but I didn't have the slightest idea what my absolute favorite story of the year was.

Sure, there are stories that stand out from others, but nothing that really jumped out at me as my overall favorite.

As the meeting continued, and we settled on which stories we would include in our recap, it occurred to me that a lot of the stories I enjoyed working on the most weren't all that popular on our website, which was one of the criteria we used to judge whether to include a story. Stories such as how University of Wisconsin chancellors fear how the sequester is going to impact university research projects, or how Grant Elementary School in Marshfield has a disproportionately lower percentage of experienced teachers compared to the district's four other elementary schools, didn't make the cut.

I get why these stories weren't huge drivers on our website, as casual readers have no tangible interest in these stories. Readers can't reach out, touch and feel what it's like for UW-Stevens Point to see a 20 percent decline in education majors during the past couple of years the way they can with stories about a car crash or a home that burned to the ground.

But I think it's a shame that some of these longer stories don't get as much attention, because while a house fire is indeed tragic, chances are that unless it happened to immediate friends or family, it won't have much of a lasting impact, if any at all. The same can't be said of record low state support for the UW System and asking students to shoulder higher tuition and the inevitable student debt that comes along with it.

For those unacquainted with my past, my background is in political science and public policy. This probably explains why I get excited about the types of stories that I do, because no matter how people feel about a particular issue, or whether they care about it at all, it's going to impact a lot of people, with second and third order effects that might not be readily known.

When I write stories, the first thing in my mind is "why does this story matter," and the last is "how many people are going to click on this."

So while the news that McDonald's is closing for a couple of months might make for great small talk around the kitchen table and is an easy story to digest - pardon my pun - I encourage you to break out of your comfort zone in 2014 and try something more substantial.

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Column: Favorite stories have impact if not reader appeal

Sitting in our newsroom meeting last week while we discussed what stories we would include in our end-of-the-year review of the top news stories, I knew I was going to have to write this piece, but I

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